Pages

Wednesday, August 31, 2011

I have the honor of spreading the joy by passing on some wonderful boro beads to one lucky winner, contribution of Sharayah, maker of all things wonderful and bestest friend of yours truly.

Rules: You must be a follower of this blog, and if you think I am worth it, like me on Face Book. (You will find the new clickey-likey button in up right corner, and you can find me on FB as Crimson Frog Designs by Kinga Nichols)

Now, Sharayah is definitely worth it,as she is the provider of these untold riches, so you must like her.

You will find her as Sharayah Sheldon.

And just drop me a line here at the comments section, just so I know who you are:)))

Random drawing will be held on the 7th of September sometime at night.

The rules might sound like a hassle, but think of this: The three strands of boro beads here worth between $200-300 , they are incredible quality, as a matter of fact, this artist does not produce any of these anymore. Unfortunately I don't know the name of the artist.If Sharayah can find it, I will post it .

All I can say is that they are super awesome, and if you have ever seen boro glass, you know they are super hard to take pictures of, in real life these are a hundred times better then on my silly pics.

Due to me being a poor artist, this give away is only open to lovely US and Canadian readers. International readers do not despair, I will have more give aways ,and I will think of all of you too, but I just spent all my money on travelling ,and these beauties weigh a lot.

The three strands contain 40 boro beads, 3 of them large focals, and a ton of Swarovski crystals inbetween and 2 silver spacers each strand.

The English Garden. The only thing I managed to finish last week. Sorry, but I worked about 62 hours, this is all I had time for.

The cabochon is the work of Leslee Giovale-Texeira, a lady of many talents, from wonderful Kailua, Hawaii. The lovely shades of sky and ocean come together in her ceramic work, all so full of life and light.

Her store on Etsy , Rare Earth Beads features cabochons, pendants, recycled glass beads, coconut beads,and many other wonderful things, and occasionally she has wonderful ceramic cabochons with a crackle glass glaze, one of which I purchased from her.

When you get something new and awesome, you don't always know what to do with it, right?

Well, I don't. So I took my sweet time and imagined what this rare piece of beauty would want to be surrounded by, what home can I make for it?

Then I thought of how it resembled a lake in a shaded green park, in an English garden, overgrown, but not forgotten,something mysterious, but light and serene.

And this is what came of it. Imagine the forest floor beneath your feet as you walk through this almost-jungle, a maze of light green with shifting shadows and dew drops...

By the time I was done with it, it also started to remind me of Poison Ivy a bit too. Particularly Uma Thurman's Poison Ivy. What do you guys think?

The live hive action at Honey Acres. Neatest invention ever: You can see what the bees up to because there is a window to their hive. I love bees, I want my own bee farm one day...

With all the buzzing, the busy little bees keep the place warm.

I was in Wisconsin, visiting my best friend Sharayah, proud owner of 4uidzne on Etsy!

I have never been to Wisconsin before, and I did not know what to expect except for cheese. Yet I was unprepared for the variety, quantity and quality that exists of this most noble substance. No wonder I keep on failing being a vegan, I tell you, life without cheese is hard:)))

Since both Sharayah and I are extremely interested in how things are made, we went on a manufacturing tour, and visited the Harley Davidson factory, to get inspired for the challenge I am running here, remember, you have more then a month left, it ends in October , on the 10th.

I wanted to empathize, that this challenge is very unique, because Harley fans drop a lot of money on accessorizing, and they are great connoisseurs of Harley related art, and this is a wonderful opportunity to make something that has a good chance of selling.

So bead away ladies:)))

We also went to a honey farm called Honey Acres, a chocolate factory called Confections by Joel, to the Sprecher Brewery , a cheese factory and visited the Jewelry Machenic, World's best family owned jewelry store ever ,that features Sharayah's bead embroidered jewelry. More on that later, this topic alone deserves it's own post.

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Last week I was exploring light and dark, and so this week I decided to go Jacques Cousteau and explore the wonderful life of all things aquatic.

The first cuff is called the "Urchins Are Coming". Because the set of three focals, once again work of lovely lady Dorcas of Wondrous Strange Designs on Etsy named her cabochons exactly that.

I tried to showcase the urchins as nicely as I could, imagining a sea full of life around them, with great textures and soothing colors. I thought the purplish pearls complimented the urchins too.

Then I added a lovely fringe around it, which was supposed to remind the dear viewer of

sea foam.

(Does it?)

While making this piece, I was thinking about John Carpenter movies, like "The Fog" and of course "The Thing" , and so I giggled at the thought of what the "Urchins are coming" would have turned into his capable hands.

"The Urchins"

I can just hear the unsettling music, as the old fashioned story unfolds by the man eating urchins.

Who are, deep down very nice people but humans genetically modified them into ravenous little beasties.

Anyhow, that was fun.

Then I started working on the "Summer Rain" cuff.

The inspiration came from two things for this one. First I saw the porcelain cabochon that became the center piece on Lisa Steven's Esty site, Seaurchin .

Lisa does amazing work with ceramics, she makes some neat pendants, cabochons and lots and lots of bowl, and everything the woman touches turns into light and texture, delicate and fully alive.

And when I saw the cabochon that became the centerpiece for this bracelet I instantly thought of the long gone summer rains and my childhood.

See, as a kid I did not care much for other kids.

But I loved animals, and shortly after abandoning the hopes of becoming a tight rope walker at the tender age of five, I decided that I must dedicate myself to animals and become a vet or a herpetologist or possibly a naturalist like Gerald Durrell.

Well, that didn't happen, but long story short,

one summer I spent all the rainy afternoons with my granny's washbasin outside, trying to teach toads how to swim.

See, toads don't like to swim. Frogs do, but toads really rather not.

And I took it upon myself to introduce them to the art and joy of swimming by catching them and letting them do a few laps around in my basin.

Of course I released them afterwards.

Now back in the day the streets of the small town we spent our summers became a regular highway for toads, frogs and hedgehogs too, and there was always something to catch , feed and release for me .

Let's just say that the same method of teaching my lovely lady pup , Samantha to swim resulted in great success she now is an avid swimmer/fisher woman and unlike most boxers she truly enjoys water. I had to dunk her in a slow moving creek, and I went in with her and she was huffy and puffy,but took to it well..

So sometimes the way I teach things work.

Anyhow, the cabochon reminded me of summers long gone, time stopping, as fat rain drops fall from the sky, and unite with the turquoise puddles below...

And ripples of water all light and lovely, all shimmer.

I worked with cool colors only , which created a really interesting, very soothing effect, and if you look close ,there are two tiny frogs facing the cabochon, my summer basin of water.

Friday, August 12, 2011

..... Yessss! I got my new computer and she is wonderful! Her name is Shelob:))

Consider this a test post to see if everything is in order. As it is right now, I have no access to any of my old pictures or anything from the old pc, may she rest in peace, but I have her hard drive and hopefully I will be able to get things off of there eventually.

Here are a few pics from our hike this Tuesday. Only in Colorado may my furchild be able to practice her second favorite sport (first one being earsurfing).

If you didn't guess what her second favorite sport was, it's face snowplowing.

At Crater Lakes, our favorite hiking post around this time of the year, there is plenty of sunshine and some snow too.

Isn't it beautiful?

Then there is a snapshot of a bracelet that never made it to Esty, because a lovely lady bought it off my hand. Good for us both.

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

On the other hand, I have been beading a lot more, and when I get my new pc this weekend, I will have some cool pics for you all.

And I will finally have time to read my favorite blogs too, soo sorry for disappearing on you, Friends.

It appears that the theme for my next challenge will be Harley Davidson inspired jewelry, and this time around, let's give it 2 months, because I bet, I am not the only busy bee out there, everyone else needs a bit of extra time in the summer too.

That makes the deadline October 10th. Once again, anything flies, any kind of jewelry created with any materials however loosely tied to the subject. Just be inventive and original, and send me 2 pics of your work and I will feature it right here and we'll all get to ooh and aah over the pretty things we all make.

And if no one joins, then I will make something ,and I will get to pick the next theme.

If you have created anything in the past that would fit the theme, you can send me pictures of that too, I will be glad to accept those too. Like I said, not too many rules here, just unconditional beady love.

One thing to keep in mind though, is that Harley Davidson is a brand, so let's not infringe on their copyrights, let's just take inspiration from the spirit of freedom or whatever this theme might represent to you, there could be many interpretations out there.

Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Here we have two of the most excellent cuffs I have ever designed. I feel like I am getting a hang of composition as time goes by, not that they are perfect or close to it, but to me, it feels like I am conquering design with some of my new pieces.

I used to just improvise cuffs, and that yielded to some good results, and to some serious duds.

I feel like ever since I actually started planning things out just a bit, my designs have a better flow to them.

The black and red one is called the Dark Queen, and it has a very powerful sort of feel to it, very seductive, very elegant, the kind of thing that makes you feel sexy...
Features black onyx , Swarovski crystal and coral cabochons.
Think of Femme Fatale, dark as night, sweet as sin!

And then we have the antithesis of course, it wouldn't be me unless I explored the opposite side of things with the same vengeance.
The other piece is about ephemeral light and goodness and playing in the sun and such.

It features a lovely raku cabochon in the shape of a medallion of the Madonna. A religious relic, if you please, bringer of hope and symbol of love. Or a fertility symbol for others, never the less, light and sweet and just as powerful as the dark cuff.

This is what I have been working on. And a few other things, you'll see all of it soon.
Sammy's hardcore fans might be disappointed that I have been unable to get the divine canine to model these little gems, but please bear in mind that the lady got slightly webbed paws.

Anyhow, as you see, Yours Truly has been busy with making new things, and if I was only as industrious at taking pictures and listing the goodies as I am at making them, I would be in less trouble right now.

See, my computer had enough of the abuse I have subjected it to, and decided that bail on me for good. So I am stuck with having to hijack the "man computer" of Paul which has a broken mouse and a keyboard that only has half of the keys operating properly.

Well, what can I say, life goes on.

Some of you will be very happy to know that Sammy has fully recuperated from her anal gland ailments, and she will be ready to model some new pieces of jewelry very soon.